Al's Story
by Zebrafresh56
Summary: All his life Al has known that he doesn't belong. He has known he'll never fit in with candor. So as choosing day approaches Al must decide. A life of happiness or a life where he knows he made his parents proud? If only that was his hardest decision. His choice will lead to many more hard challenges and finally, his most dauntless act of all.
1. Choosing Ceremony

Al.

_Today's the day. The day he will finally make his parents proud, choosing day._

As Al walks downstairs in his usual black and white clothing that marks him as candor he can hear his mom and dad arguing on their thoughts of what makes a good waffle. His dad insists it's the batter, you have to get the right kind that will puff when it cooks. His mom however disagrees and says it's all about the batter to water ratio. Al shakes his head and smiles to himself. He's going to miss them so much. Just thinking about leaving his mom and dad makes his eyes tear up, but he knows this is the only way to make them truly proud. He doesn't quite fit in with candor and his parents know that. He also sees they're admiring stares every time a dauntless jumps off the train. He wants to be on the receiving end of one of those looks, and soon he will be.

He eats breakfast and has a pretty normal day for candor. His mom and dad go to work and he works out trying to prepare for a drastic change in his life. For the last year when no one was home he's done some self-training. He has no clue what's going to come up in dauntless initiation so he wants to be prepared. After that he takes a shower and prepares a light lunch. Since the choosing ceremony is tonight his parents get half the day off. It's supposed to be sort of a saying goodbye, a tying up of loose ends afternoon.

His parents get home late saying that they got held up at a trial. Al says it's fine, but he's sad because now there's no time to tie up his loose ends. While they were gone he's been replaying what he'll do at the choosing ceremony. They'll call his name _Albert _and he'll walk straight up to the bowls knowing what his choice is. He's spent the past year training for this and the past three years knowing that this will be his choice. He walks up and puts his hand over the bowl with hot, burning coals. And then he lets his blood drip into it. He'll look up and see his parents cheering and he'll see dauntless on their feet ready to welcome another comrade to their faction.

The mental simulation calmed him down for over a year and a half, but the past two weeks the bowls have been changing. At last minute his hand switches over to a different bowl, this one has soil. Now when he looks up his moms face has horror and his dad can't even look at him. His eyes start to mist and he hurries off the stage. He goes to his new faction of peace and kindness. Inside him he knows this is the right decision for him and he feels peacefulness flow through him. The only thing that takes it away is when he looks to his left and sees the betrayal on his family's faces.

Al wakes up with a shudder. He didn't even know he had fallen asleep, but now he's on his way to the choosing ceremony. He's all out of whack and can't think straight. He's supposed to trust the test, but how could he trust the test when it makes him betray the only two people he's loved unconditionally his entire life? The answer is he can't. He knows that and he has known that for the past two years. He knows he's not dauntless, but that's what he's been training for. Deep down he knows this is because of his test results. He is amity and there's no denying it. Unfortunately he knows in order to please his parents he must deny it and bury it deep, deep down inside of him.

They make it to the choosing ceremony and Al has mostly calmed down. The only thing that gives his terror away is his quaking palms. He looks down and disgusted with himself shoves them into his pockets. They file into the room and sit down with the rest of the candor. Al's pretty sure there's a man or woman speaking but he just keeps staring at the bowls and has flashes of his past and two potential futures. _"We love you so much! Our little Al," his mom gushes. _He hadn't even remembered that until now. _He looks up to see a look of sadness on his dad's face when he sees me lying for the first time to an old lady because I complimented her outfit. _He blinks at that memory. The time his parents realized that he couldn't be candor. _He sees himself in a yellow shirt laughing with friends and having a nice day in the fields helping them pick the crops. _His future in amity, happy and free. Well almost free. _He's now crying and holding a photo of his parents. They're smiling, but that's not what his mind sees. His mind replays the betrayed looks they had at the choosing ceremony._ He knows his parents hate amity more than they love him. The lies to make peace. They see amity's peace as deceit and they think nothing is worse than lying for the "greater good". _He blinks and instead of betrayal he sees his mom and dad rushing to great him on visitation day. His mom is weeping, but she says she couldn't be prouder. His dad is smiling and Al thinks he sees some tears welling in his eyes too. There are many emotions, but all Al can see is the love and the pride that's filling him up and making his biggest lie of all, him being dauntless, worth it. _This time when he looks up it's because he hears his name. It's time.

Al walks up to the stage, but unlike his dream, he's not confident at all. In fact his hands are shaking and he can barely make one foot go in front of another. He takes the knife and makes a slash on his hand. It's one just deep enough to draw blood, but also shallow enough to buy him some time. He must choose. His happiness or his parents? He knows ultimately they're entwined. If he chose amity he wouldn't be truly happy, but he's lived his whole life conforming and he wants to be free. Without him knowing it his hand is held over the soil. At last minute, before the drop falls, he looks up. He sees his parents confusion and the start of betrayal. So before the drop can land he shoves his hand over the coals. He can't breathe, he can't think. All he can do is look up numbly. _What did he do? _

He can see his parents brimming with pride just like he knew they would, and he can see dauntless cheering, but he can't hear anything. He's overwhelmed and he knows. Right then he knows that the decision to make his parents proud wasn't about they're happiness. It was about his. It was about getting the approval he always craved. So with a calmer mind he goes to join dauntless. He's completely oblivious to the fact that his choice was the most dauntless thing he has ever done, and probably ever will.


	2. Intro to Dauntless

The rest of the ceremony goes by in a blur and soon enough he's running out of the compound with his new faction.

_His new faction_. It's so weird for him to think of it like that. All his life he's been candor, even though he didn't fit in. Candor is where his home is and it's weird that one drop of blood changes that. Al shakes his head to clear his thoughts. He needs to focus on what's happening to him right now. He looks around and sees that they've approached the train tracks. He knows what happens next, but when the train comes and people start running to jump onto the _moving train_ he's dumbfounded. Why? Why would they do it? There's nothing brave to it, just moronic. Unfortunately the faction wasn't created to please him so he runs and easily catches up with the others from his year of training. Once he gets close enough, but not so close as to lose a toe, he reaches out and pulls himself on with relative ease.

The train goes for a while and he assesses his new faction members. All the dauntless are scary with their dark clothes and tattoos and piercings. He can't imagine ever looking like one, but he couldn't imagine picking a different faction when he was younger either, so there's still hope. His eyes wonder over to the transfers. There are mostly candor initiates, but that's normal. Honesty requires a sort of fearlessness which is perhaps why he wasn't ever very good at it. His eyes skim over the faintly familiar faces. These are his old faction members and yet he doesn't even know them. Okay, that's not necessarily true. He sees Drew, Peter, Molly, and Christina. He definitely recognizes them. The thing is, besides their names all he knows is that Drew, Peter, and Molly are bullies and that Christina's a loud mouth, even for candor. He smiles at that thought and sees the little girl in gray sitting beside Christina.

With her blond hair and blue eyes she's adorable. What Al likes about her is how she's so tiny, like a mouse. She's wearing abnegation regulation clothes so she must have transferred from there. That's almost unheard of and Al feels this overwhelming need to protect this little mouse who looks too soft to belong in a faction as loud and sometimes cruel as dauntless.

Al sees the people in the cart in front of them standing up.

"What are they doing?" An erudite boy Al must have missed earlier asks.

"It looks like they're jumping," Christina says with wide eyes. Al looks around waiting for the punch line because this has to be a joke. Why on Earth would they jump off the train? He steps closer to the door to see what's going on. There's a huge gap between him and the building. Not too big though, with enough effort he could easily make it to the building. Must be a part of initiation. Al takes a few steps back and runs forward pushing himself free of the train. He lands with a loud umph and looks around him. He sees some other transfers rubbing dirt off them and even favoring sides of their bodies because they hit the ground wrong. He dimly sees Christina and the little mouse wiping off their own knees. He turns around and just barley catches sight of the train leaving with a transfer who was too afraid to jump. Al feels extremely sad and a little lost. It's not fair that because one of their fears was heights that they're factionless now. Nobody but dauntless would have ever done anything like this before. Al's most daring act before this was jumping off a swing.

While Al was working up this anger he missed what was said. He steps closer to the crowd to see what's going on. Everyone's looking at each other, waiting for someone else to make a move. Al might've if he knew what they were doing. Out of nowhere a voice says "I'll go." Al looks around and the crowd parts to reveal the little mouse. His mouse. She steps forward timidly and he hears snickers and "yeah rights". She steps up onto the edge of the building and Al's stunned. She's going to jump off.

"We don't have all day Stiff," A man says who looks like he's in charge. And on that note his mouse steps off the edge. Everyone's kind of shocked. Even the elder dauntless look impress and stupefied all at once. Soon everyone's in line waiting to jump off. Al's not in a hurry, but he knows going last might draw the wrong sort of attention to him, so Al finds a place in the middle. Pretty soon it's his turn. Al steps up and looks down. Below him, about twenty stories, is a whole. It looks small, so he better not push off. Al isn't erudite, but it doesn't take a genius to know that they aren't going to kill all their initiates, so he takes a deep breath and steps forward.

The fall is amazing. He feels air all around him and he's not attached to anything. Nothing is chaining him down and he feels absolutely free. For the first time in his entire life, Al doesn't feel a burden set upon him by rules and things he's supposed to be but never will be. Unfortunately the net that catches him comes all too soon as does his reality of pretending to be dauntless.

He gets out of the net and waits for everyone else to finish jumping. Once everyone's done they're separated into dauntless-born and transfers. That's better to Al because the transfers aren't as scary. They're not really foreign, instead he feels an odd connection to them. Without realizing it, Al moved to the front of the crowd while their instructor, Four, showed them around. He catches the end of Four telling Christina to keep her mouth shut here. It's a common candor problem, but he never had a problem with that before. It's why he doesn't know anybody. It's also why when they're lead to the dining hall he's surprised to find Christina and his mouse sitting in front of him.

He doesn't know what to say, so he keeps eating his food.

"Hey Al!" Christina says. Al's a tad confused because they've never really spoken before.

"Hi?" Al says. It comes out more like a timid question and he internally kicks himself for it. A real dauntless wouldn't be so unsure in social encounters or shy. A real dauntless isn't afraid of what people think.

"This is Tris! She was the first jumper! Did you know she came from abnegation?..." Christina keeps going on and he hears something about hamburger, but he doesn't process it. He's focusing on Tris. So his mouse finally got a name. She's picking at her food and altogether just as timid on the outside as he is on the inside. Again he gets the protective feeling and the need to know her. Something catches his attention next to her and he looks away to see that it's Four. He's staring at her, almost as if he was pondering something about her, but before he can really figure out what's going on another transfer joins the conversation he's pretending to be a part of.

"Will," he says. He must have been asked his name. He's the erudite boy from the train. He's medium build, not quite scrawny, but also not quite muscular. At physical combat he could easily beat him. The thought goes through his brain, but before he thinks anything else he stops himself. This isn't him. He's not aggressive and he's never sized anyone up before. He watches him while he talks to Christina and Tris and he likes him. He seems nice and he's funny. Al decides it's time to come out of his head and finally make friends. For the rest of the night he talks to his three new friends and finally feels some peace over his decision. That is until that night.

Al sees his parents. He sees flashes of them. _His mom kissing his knee when he fell._ And _his dad pushing the back of his bike when he learned to ride it for the first time._ Then he sees _his mom and dad beaming with pride when he went to join his new faction. _Al holds onto these pictures until a deep longing comes from within him. He misses them. He misses them and the decision to come here was the right one he knows. It was the right one for them, and honestly he feels a little betrayed. He finally does something to make them proud and it requires him to leave them. His two parents. His life. He doesn't know when he started crying because they were just quite drops, but now it's not silent. It's loud gasping tears. He turns over to muffle them. He knows he's week, but he doesn't need all the transfers to know. His only hope is that his big muscle form is enough to intimidate. If the whole room hears him cry then no one will even care what he looks like. They'll see right through him to the amity. He doesn't know how long it takes, but finally his tears die down and he falls into a black oblivion.


End file.
